So, what’s the best way to treat Type 2 diabetes?
Several treatment centers have convincingly demonstrated that most Type 2 diabetics can normalize their blood sugar levels, often within weeks, by following a simple plant-based whole-food diet, very low in fat and high in fiber, coupled with daily exercise.
Lowering the amount of fat, oil, and grease in the diet plays the crucial role. When less fat is eaten, less fat reaches the bloodstream and the liver. This begins a complicated process that gradually restores the sensitivity to insulin, which can then facilitate the entry of sugar from the bloodstream into the body cells. The effect is often dramatic. A Type 2 diabetic who lowers daily fat intake to about 10 percent of total calories can often normalize the blood sugar levels within weeks. Many are eventually able to get off diabetic medication entirely—both pills and injections.
Eating more natural, fiber-rich foods plays an important role by helping stabilize blood sugar levels. When foods are eaten without their normal complement of fiber, blood sugar levels can quickly shoot up. Normally a surge of insulin then counteracts this. People who consume refined foods, drinks, and snacks high in calories but low in fiber may experience hikes and dips in blood sugar levels all day long. High-fiber foods, on the other hand, smooth out these blood sugar fluctuations and stabilize energy levels.
Active physical exercise has an insulin-like reaction in that it burns up the excess fuel (blood sugar and fatty acids) more rapidly. The most recent recommendations encourage the person with diabetes to take a sort walk immediately after each meal aside from the regular daily exercise program.
The foremost recommended lifestyle modification for diabetes, however, is losing excess weight. Obesity and with that the over consumption of fats and oils is far and away the most common non-genetic component contributing to the development of diabetes. Normalizing body weight is often all that is necessary to bring the blood sugar back to normal. The very low-fat, high-fiber diet will greatly aid this effort, as will regular, active exercise.
How about my inherited genes?
Doesn’t diabetes run in families? Yes, it does. But could it be that it is not only the genetic material that is passed on from one generation to the next but also the recipes? Don’t recipes get passed on from one generation to the next as well? We have learned from genetics that it takes several generations to change the genetic make-up of a nation. However, the fact that diabetes has relentlessly extended itself, tripling within only 30 years in this country, makes the assumption of being a genetically caused disease rather questionable.
Furthermore, we are beginning to understand more and more from the emerging concepts of epigenetics that we are not prisoners of our genes, because our genes can be powerfully influenced and modified in their degree of expression through lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise.
What about Type I diabetes?
Insulin-dependent, or Type I, diabetics will need to take insulin for life until pancreatic transplants become feasible and affordable. However, the high-fiber, very low-fat diet will help reduce the amount of insulin required to maintain stable blood sugar levels and reduce the ever-present threat of vascular complications.
A protein has been identified in cow’s milk that can increase the risk of diabetes in babies. This is one of the reasons why the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that cow’s milk should NOT be given to babies until they are at least one year of age. Breast-fed infants have been found with a significant measure of protection against this kind of diabetes.